• Discover Your Winter Cocktail. Answer a few questions in the widget and leave a comment with the name of winter cocktail that suits you best.
• Little Known Liquor Facts! This fun guide will give you little known facts about liquor you may not have known!
• Give a Winter Twist to Four Classic Cocktails!  Everyone has their favorite drink and most of the time they are the tried and true classics. Now you can spice up your classic cocktail with a fun holiday twist!  Great to share with friends or become the hit of your holiday party!

Check out a few cool Seasonal Cocktails Recipes:

Chocolate Snowball

Ingredients:

• 2 oz coconut rum
• 2 oz  Irish cream
• 1 oz hazelnut liqueur
• 3 1/2 oz melted chocolate
• 3 1/2 oz cream
• 1 dash chocolate syrup

Preparation: Place the chocolate syrup around the glass then place the other ingredients into a cocktail shaker with ice and shake. Strain into glass.

Spring Fever

Ingredients:

• 3/4 oz lemon juice
• 3/4 oz mango syrup
• 1 1/2 oz pineapple juice
• 2 oz blood orange juice

Preparation: Shake well over ice cubes in a shaker, and strain into a collins glass half-filled with crushed ice.

Winter Breeze

Ingredients:

• 1 oz creme de cacao
• 1 oz vanilla schnapps
• 1 oz Irish cream
• Milk

Preparation: Pour liquors into a beer mug, and fill with milk. Stir, and serve.

The Gіveaway :

One lucky readers will wіn A Hendrick’s Gin Golf Umbrella and a $20 Crate & Barrel Gift Card.

 Gіveaway open to U.S. addresses only. No P.O. Boxes.

Please use Rafflecopter form below to enter the gіveaway.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This Gіveaway ends on February 18, 11:59pm EST, 2012. The winners will be chosen randomly via Rafflecopter. I will email the winner, who will have 24 hours to contact me or a new winner will be chosen.

Gіveaway disclaimer: I received no product or monetary compensation for posting this gіveaway.This gіveaway is not associated with or related to Facebook.

The hardest of planning a kid’s party is food for kids. It has to be something they would eat –  kids are so picky these days. And then, it should be colorful, but without artificial colors.

Here is the desert we came up with: a strawberry mousse. It is sweet and fluffy, and so easy to make from only three ingredients: strawberries, sugar, and gelatin. I am still working on the ingredients ratio to make it perfect. But my kids love it every time they get to make it. The hard part is waiting for an hour until it gets firm. Masha got to cut it first thing in the morning:

The other important part of a kid’s party is activities. This time it will be easy, though.  Little Angels provided activity sheets, coloring pages, Valentine cards, picture frames, and more activity ideas.  We may add a couple of active games to the list, like Musical Chairs to the tune of Adam’s song in the Little Angels iPad App.

Stay tuned for a report from our party. In the mean time, we are looking forward to the Valentine’s party and to watching LITTLE ANGELS ABC’s, LITTLE ANGELS ANIMALS, and LITTLE ANGELS 1, 2, 3’s DVDs, which will be available on February 14.

Are you planning a Valentine Party?

Baby Gourmet is an Organic baby food line that meets a long list of my criteria.

Founder Jennifer Broe had similar concerns. She wanted to feed her babies food that was healthy and tasty, but was disappointed by grocery store options. She started making her own baby food based on home-tested and much-loved family recipes. In 2006, Baby Gourmet launched and Jen was soon doing an impressive business in the year-round Farmers’ Market.  Mothers wanted what she was selling.

Baby Gourmet is the best-tasting baby food.  The recipes have a sophisticated and delicate blend of flavors that make it easy to get babies to love food that is good for them – even greens.

Quality: All of the products started out in the founder’s kitchen — not in a lab or a factory.  And once it has been manufactured, every batch is tasted. If it is not absolutely perfect, a new batch is started from scratch.

Allergens: Baby Gourmet factories are tested after each run on a microscopic level for remaining allergens. Nut and egg free factory, dairy is only in the apple crisp flavor.

Baby Gourmet is healthy, organic, and nutritious food for babies (6-12mo) made by moms with a little ingenuity.  With all products starting in owners, Jen’s and Jill’s kitchens, each recipe and batch thereafter is taste-tested and poured out if it’s not absolutely loved. Creative recipes include:

• 6mo – Simple Purees
• Harvest Pear, Pumpkin, and Banana
• Juicy Pear and Garden Greens
• Orchard Apple, Carrot Prune
• 7mo – Yummy Combos
• Baby’s Sweet Potato Pie
• Roasted Squash and Fruit Medley
• Apple, Sweet Potato Berry Swirl
• 8mo+ – Tasty Textures
• Old Fashioned Apple Crisp
• Vanilla Banana Berry Risotto
• Tropical Banana Bliss

All products are organic, no salt, sugar, fillers, preservatives, no nuts.  No dairy, except in Old Fashioned Apple Crisp.  Packaged in in a specially designed pouch allows for less cooking time, locking in nutrient values and flavors.  Currently sold nationwide in the USA and Canada. Baby Gourmet pouches are also sold on Amazon.

The Giveaway:

Two lucky readers will win a pack of 9 Baby Gourmet’s 4.5 oz pouches in 9 flavors and door delivery service.

Each winner will receive these 9 packs:

• 6mo – Simple Purees
• Harvest Pear, Pumpkin, and Banana
• Juicy Pear and Garden Greens
• Orchard Apple, Carrot Prune
• 7mo – Yummy Combos
• Baby’s Sweet Potato Pie
• Roasted Squash and Fruit Medley
• Apple, Sweet Potato Berry Swirl
• 8mo+ – Tasty Textures
• Old Fashioned Apple Crisp
• Vanilla Banana Berry Risotto
• Tropical Banana Bliss

 Giveaway open to U.S. addresses only. No P.O. Boxes.

Please use Rafflecopter form below to enter the giveaway.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This Giveaway ends on February 8, 11:59pm EST, 2012. The winners will be chosen randomly via Rafflecopter. I will email the winner, who will have 72 hours to contact me or a new winner will be chosen.

Giveaway disclaimer: I received no product or monetary compensation for posting this giveaway. This post contains affiliate links. This giveaway is not associated with or related to Facebook.

When I was growing up, Grandfather Frost would bring gifts on the New Year’s Eve for me and millions of other kids who lived in Russia. Throughout the entire Holiday season we would go to Grandfather Frost’s parties, filled with games, dances, and songs.

Ded Moroz (Russian for Grandfather Frost) is generally a very active guy who runs, jumps, dances, sings songs, and has a magic ability to turn on lights on a Christmas tree. He also has a huge red sack filled with presents.

He would give a small present to all the kids in exchange for a “performance”, which could be a song or a poem. I must say that he preferred poems and songs about himself, holidays, or winter. So we, as kids, used to learn several holiday poems and songs in anticipation of the his visit.

It would be fun to have Ded Moroz come entertain the kids here, I thought a few months ago. The kids would love to see him. They know everything about him from books we read and cartoons we watch. They even know some holiday songs in Russian.

The next day I ordered a Ded Moroz suit from Moscow. I decided to save on the beard and buy it on Amazon. While this was a decent beard, it is not as big, thick, and long as Ded Moroz is supposed to have. I should have bought an authentic beard. Oh well, maybe next year.

A friend of ours agreed to dress up as Ded Moroz.  Both girls learned a couple of songs and poems anticipating his arrival. And when the day came. Someone rang our doorbell.

They genuinely believed he was real:

Svetlana danced in an attempt to collect more gifts:

Masha sang. They both got many presents.

Now, my kids’ favorite pastime is to walk around the house with big red plastic bags filled with toys from their room saying in a deep voice: Hi, I am Ded Moroz. If you tell me a poem, I will give you a present.

Do you have a special Christmas or New Year tradition?

I am linking up at

Disclaimer: This post has affiliate links.

No day would go by without them talking about their birthdays: past and future. They always enjoy going back to the places where celebrations took place. Masha’s party was at Recess by Charley. The kids particularly liked that they could play both inside and outside:

Then the guests slowly transitioned to the party table:

Most of them ate at the table, but some preferred eating and driving:

The cake was just too good to pass by…

Are you planning to have the next kid’s birthday at home or somewhere else? Will it be a themed birthday? Share your ideas!

Can you imagine my excitement when I found out there was an ALDI store nearby here in Georgia?

The store was squeaky clean, all the food items nicely arranged on the shelves. I was particularly impressed with the wine selection, not to mention the low cost of those wines:

It was nice to see so many high quality food items that I have not seen in my neighborhood grocery stores. Now I am planning to get an ALDI iPhone app, so I can create grocery lists and make shopping even more efficient.

The staff was very friendly and helped me look for items on my list.

Large selection of specialty cheeses makes it easy to choose the right kind to pair with your favorite wine. All the types cheese we bought were exactly half the price of my neighborhood supermarket prices. All the fruit spreads are made in Germany and have no high fructose corn syrup (or any corn syrup for that matter).

Having spent less than seventy dollars, I was able to entertain a large company. My purchase even included a Gingerbread House kit for the kids (which was only $6.99):

When you plan you next trip to ALDI, here are some tips to make the trip worthwhile:

• Bring your own bags if you prefer not to pay for plastic bags. You can also bring with you some extra bags to wrap your wine in case you are buying wine (there are no brown paper bags).
• Do not plan on using coupons since only ALDI gift certificates are accepted as coupons.
• Check you wallet to make sure you have a debit card or cash since credit cards are not accepted to keep the prices low.
• Remember to take a quarter for renting a cart (you will get it back). This is done to save on labor and prevent damage to carts. Here is my daughter depositing the coin in the cart. She thoroughly enjoyed the process:

Some things are different in ALDI from other supermarkets, I admit. However, it is nice to be able to save on groceries without sacrificing quality of food.

Can I be flexible? Absolutely. I can bring my own bags and remember to check if I have a quarter. I can use coupons in another store. I can pay with a debit card. If all that means that I can get high quality products with less money, I am in.

“What was your favorite part of shopping at ALDI”, I asked my pre-schooler. “Gingerbread house” she said. She picked it out herself. And the kids loved decorating it:

Am I coming back? Definitely. I need a lot of affordable delicious food for the holidays. And wines. And another Gingerbread house.

I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour by Mom Central Consulting on behalf of ALDI and received a gift certificate to facilitate my review.